Brown Ribbons

A friend is walking for breast cancer. Major League baseball has pink baseball bats. Everyone has sold out or bought in. How did breast cancer get so pink and how did it get so untouchable. Breast cancer advocates have tits that no one can touch.

What happened to feminists who wouldn’t think of dressing their baby girls in pink? Now a woman can hardly buy any product that doesn’t come in pink with that dam breast cancer ribbon logo. Ohhhh breast cancer. I know, but really.

Breast cancer isn’t the leading killer of women. Heart disease is. Breast cancer isn’t even the leading cancer for women. Lung cancer is. Breast cancer isn’t even the medically scariest cancer for women. Ovarian cancer—silent and fatal—is.

So why all the pink ribbons? Is it about the breasts? Playboy? Motherhood? Tit power? Somehow breast cancer became the leading product in American marketing. All you need to say is that one penny of the price of anything goes to breast cancer research or education or to the design of yet another unnecessary product and it’s done. Here’s a new slogan: “Breast cancer: You can’t touch that”.

But then there is colon cancer. Also silent, deadly, a fast growing, killing cancer with wicked, chemo-scary treatments and life changing surgery. Women die of colon cancer too and believe me; colon cancer will change your life much more than breast cancer. So where are the fund raisers? Celebrity endorsements? Where is the “Walk your Butt off for Colon Cancer” walk-a-thons? Where is the bumper sticker that says “Don’t be an Ass, get a Colonoscopy”? Where is the tee shirt that says “No Shit: I survived Colon Cancer”?

Where are the brown ribbons?